Ode to Walt Whitman

Ode to Walt Whitman, a tender, silent puppet poem uncovers a dialogue between Walt Whitman and Federico Garcia Lorca. Within the context of an online gay chat room, their poetic dialogue contrasts Whitman’s America, a nation full of lovers and comrades, with what Garcia Lorca sees, an America inundated with machines and tears.

Hand puppets, a butterfly marionette, masks, grass bunraku puppets, toy theater, shadows and video projections depict Whitman and Garcia Lorca chased through a surreal and tragic landscape. Live organic electronica by Martin Dosh accompanies the scene.

This intricate work reveals and updates conversations between Whitman and Garcia Lorca, extending their metaphors into the postmodern gay world. This puppet ode hearkens for a remembrance and realization of Whitman’s love and Whitman’s dreams of America.

In 2009, Ode to Walt Whitman was performed at Here Arts Center, curated by Basil Twist, in New York City to sold out shows, earning an illustration in The New Yorker and high praise from the Jim Henson Foundation.

Some important responses to this work: While performing at Here Arts Center in NYC in 2009, Jane Henson, the wife of Jim Henson came to Ode to Walt Whitman twice. When asked “Why did you see it twice?” she responded, “The show is a good poem and good poems need to be read twice.” In 2006, Quinton Skinner of City Pages wrote this about the performance, “By the time it was over, a fully realized vision had emerged combining poetic sadness with a cosmic smile that even old corduroy-clad-Walt would have endorsed.”